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Controversies about Work, Leisure, and Welfare in Europe and the United States

Controversies about Work, Leisure, and Welfare in Europe and the United States

Chapter:

(p.343)
11 Controversies about Work, Leisure, and Welfare in Europe and the United States

Source:

Perspectives on the Performance of the Continental Economies

Author(s):

Robert J. Gordon

Publisher:

The MIT Press

DOI:10.7551/mitpress/9780262015318.003.0011

This chapter addresses the question of whether Europe is really as poor as suggested by comparative data on real GDP per capita. It examines two classes of arguments implying that standard PPP-based ratios of European output per capita relative to that of the United States understate true European welfare. It demonstrates that even if the decline in European hours per capita represented a voluntary transfer of work hours to pure leisure, that leisure is not worth much. It reviews debates involving four leading interpretations of the relative decline in European hours per capita. It also considers possible dimensions in which measured PPP GDP overstates welfare in the United States compared to Europe.

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PRINTED FROM MIT PRESS SCHOLARSHIP ONLINE (www.mitpress.universitypressscholarship.com). (c) Copyright The MIT Press, 2018. All Rights Reserved. Under the terms of the licence agreement, an individual user may print out a PDF of a single chapter of a monograph in MITSO for personal use (for details see www.mitpress.universitypressscholarship.com/page/privacy-policy).date: 19 December 2018